Adrian Kavanagh, 20th February 2012
Some months after the publication of provisional population by area figures by the Central Statistics Office for the 2011 Census, a new Constituency Commission was set in place to begin the process of redrawing European and general election constituency boundaries in light of the changes in population between 2006 and 2011 as revealed in these figures. The other main factor for the new commission to consider was the decision to reduce the number of TDs in the next Dail, in keeping with government reccomendations and the stipulations set out in the 2011 amendment to the Electoral Act. The process commenced much earlier for this Commission than for previous ones, in which the process has started after the publication of the final, or definitive, population by area census figures by the CSO. Following the ruling on the McGrath/Murphy high court case in 2007, the Commission must now commence the process of redrawing Dail and European election constituency boundaries after provisional census figures are published although they cannot publish the final report until after the final or definitive population by area census figures have been published. Given that there tends to be little difference between provisional and final census figures for large areas such as constituencies, very few final tweaks may be needed should a draft version of the final report be available ahead of the publication of the final census figures and the published report is likely to be available some weeks after these figures are released.
In total, 533 public submissions were made to the Constituency Commission between the receipt of the first submission on 22nd September 2011 and the closing date for submissions (10th January 2012). This compared highly favourably with the level of submissions for the two previous cases, with 335 submissions made in the case of the 2007 Constituency Commission and just 99 submissions made in the case of the 2004 Constituency Commission. Continue reading
Irish Elections: Geography, Facts and Analyses 